Charlotte O'Kelly and Prof. Frederic Dias from UCD are among 4 winners of The European Research Council (ERC) competition for its top-up funding, ’Proof of Concept’. The funding will help to bring Prof. Dias' pioneering ’blue sky’ research closer to the market, in cooperation with TechWorks Marine to provide products and services to a range of sectors including offshore renewable energy, coastal engineering, ports and harbors, oil and gas, aquaculture, water and utilities, academia, research and statutory monitoring.

The objective of their work is to measure ’rogue waves’ in extreme sea conditions: recently, a new type of wave buoy reportedly measured a record wave height of 23.4 meters off the Northwestern coast of Ireland. Prof. Dias and Charlotte O’Kelly aim to produce finely-attuned sensors for a similar buoy specially designed to measure such ’rogue waves’ in extreme sea conditions.